1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a coating apparatus for applying a coating composition to substantially flat baked pieces, particularly cookies or the like, comprising a storage container and a metering device, which succeeds said container and comprises a rotating metering body, which contains a plurality of metering pockets, which open outwardly through discharge nozzle passages, and a non-rotatable scraping blade, which is provided at the coating location and is adapted to be resiliently urged against the surface of the metering body, which in said surface is formed with said metering pockets. Said scraping blade forces the coating composition in an exactly metered quantity out of a metering pocket through the succeeding discharge nozzle passage as said pocket moves past said blade.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a known apparatus of that kind the rotating metering body provided with the metering pockets consists of a flat disk, which constitutes the flat bottom of an upright cylindrical container. The baked pieces which are to be coated, such as cookies, are transported below the metering disk in a direction which is tangential with respect to the axis of rotation of the metering disk and as the transportation of the cookie to the coating location is continued past said location a predetermined quantity of the coating composition is forced by the scraping blade out of a metering pocket through the discharge nozzle passage onto the top surface of the cookie. That known apparatus has the disadvantages that the entire weight of the coating composition contained in the supply container must be taken up by the metering disk and that that coating composition is continuously agitated and mixed by the continuously rotating metering disk. The intensity of that mixing action will increase as the quantity of coating composition in the supply container decreases. With some creams this will result in a change of the consistency of the coating as it is applied so that the consistency of the cream coating on the cookies will vary in dependence on the level of the coating composition in the supply container. A further disadvantage resides in that the coating composition in the supply container is moved to the metering disk only by gravity and this is opposed by the agitation which is imparted to the coating composition by the rotating metering disk. For this reason the known coating apparatus can be used only for creams having a viscosity within a very narrow range.